hotel, motel, Holiday Inn...

nope. not a-gonna rap this morning.

but whilst perusing my DRB (daily required blogs), i found this little gem from Doug.
and, of course, it reminded me of a few bad hotel memories that i'm compelled to share.

many, many, many years ago in high school, i was in Rainbow Girls, and every year they had a convention where we would announce the new state officers for the next year. (imagine about 3,000 screaming, hormonal teenage girls. you get the picture)

the location would flip every year - one year would be up in Fresno, the next down here in Anaheim. but in 1980, it was the first year in Anaheim. and, as with most first time things, it was a bit of a fiasco.

for reasons still not understood, many girls ended up at hotels they weren't originally booked at. my assembly was one of 'em.

now you may be wondering why local girls would want to stay at a hotel for a local event. well, if you've ever dealt with teenage girls, you have your answer. and so, we found ourselves not at the local Travelodge where our reservations were, but at a true motor hotel about three miles from the convention center.

but, after doing several phone calls, the original hotel told us we only needed to stay at this motel one night, the remainder of our time would be at another hotel, closer to the convention center.

in the meantime, we're stuck at this motel.
a really icky motel.
the kind of hotel that offered the very latest in vibrabeds.

wow. who knew a quarter could buy so much.

at one point, myself and three other girls in our room, heard a rather heated argument coming from the room next door (we couldn't get adjoining rooms. i'm sure there was a crack whore convention also in town, staying at this hole, er...motel.). something to the effect of "give me the money you owe me, your muther..."

yeah. this is the kind of environment i want my teenage girl soaking up.

we ended up screaming (because that's what teenage girls do) and my bright idea was to stow all our luggage in front of the door to our room.

oh yeah. that'll save our butts.

eventually, one of our adult advisors called us, asking us to keep it down.
what th'?
well, after we screamed (again, it's what teenage girls do)what was going on, the police were called and arrests were made.

ah, precious memories.

fast forward to 2004. Husband and i were on a roadtrip to northern California, touring the wine country. one night was spent in Santa Rosa, where we toured the Charles M. Schulz museum, and toured some of the Husband's old haunts (his family lived in Santa Rosa for a year or so). being tired, we stopped at a decent looking Motel 6, checked in, and had the best.Mexican.food.EVER at a restaurant across the street.

back to the room, crawled into bed (margaritas were involved) and fell asleep.

a few hours later, the TV came on, and at full volume.
talk about a rude awakening.
we searched all over the bed, assuming we had rolled over on the remote. nope, it was over on the bedside table - right where we left it. so we turned it off, and fell back asleep.

but the TV wasn't done. it turned on again, just as loud as before. it happened one more time, before i got the bright idea to unplug the damn thing.

believe me, if it turned on after that, i would be sleeping in the truck.

next morning, Husband went to check out and to let them know about the TV. when he came back in the room, i asked if he remembered to tell them about the TV.

"oh yeah," he said, "funny thing - turns out that there was an old man who lived here in this room and they were always getting complaints that the volume was too loud. well, he died in here, so now his ghost haunts the room and watches TV whenever he wants."

picture me. silent. jaw dropped. eyes as big as my bum. the Husband looked at me.

"come on. no old man died in here, the TV's broken."

thanks honey. knowing you're in my corner makes the road all the easier to traverse.
and makes the hotels more cozy.